zompist bboard

Ars Lande wrote:Fascinating stuff, as always! Thanks, Sal.

Salmoneus wrote:Sir Helenus Padraic Seosamh Milmo QC,

There's some serious potential for a "Harry Potter minor character or British politician" game here.

Actually, "Padraic Seosamh" sounds a lot more Irish than British to me.

Ok, the bill passed the Bundestag this morning, with Merkel herself voting against it. I think bills being passed against the Chancellor's own vote are fairly unusual in Germany - I guess in this case it was possible because of the weird situation where the two biggest parties at the same time gover...

96 football fans died [...] 95 counts of manslaughter Typo, or is there some reason he isn't being charged for one of the deaths? 94 people died on the day; one died a few days later. The 96th victim, however, spent 4 years in a coma before dying. Apparently there are technicalities around that tha...

Next there's the fact that the government had to cave at the last minute even to get this through. An ammendment was tabled that looked like winning, so the government had to, on the fly, introduce a new policy that made the ammendment unnecessary. So, from now on, abortion tourists from northern i...

Government won the vote. First major hurdle for May (after the election) taken.

Oh, and they're voting on the supportive response to the Queen's Speech right now.

Thank you, Salmoneus! In unrelated news, today the Speaker of the House of Commons stated during a debate that male MPs don't necessarily have to wear ties during meetings, which was apparently notable enough that several news outlets ran stories on it. Oh, and apparently some right-wing old farts d...

Out of curiosity, what happens if a PM unexpectedly dies in office, or if a really big scandal hits and the PM resigns before their party has had time to hold a leadership election? Who gets to be PM until the leadership election is completed?

Next update: The marriage equality bill has been reported out of the Bundestag's law committee. Pretty much everyone seems to agree that it will pass its second and third reading on Friday. (Presumably, the Council of Elders will, when it meets tomorrow, put it on the agenda for Friday.) (Today I le...

Some updates: The SPD held a federal party convention on Sunday, which, like most party conventions, was mostly ignored by most people. In the state of Schleswig-Holstein, CDU, FDP, and the Greens have agreed on a "Jamaica coalition", following coalition negotiations that had started after the state...

Something related to UK politics that I think is a bit weird if you think about it: The question of whether former (and possible future) UKIP leader Nigel Farage is relevant enough to be on TV. Farage apparently gets invited by British TV channels again and again and again, all while cheerfully accu...

Belated reply: To be fair, EU central bank policy (and most EU policy in general) is elaborated by consensus; it's been politically convenient to blame unpopular measures on the Germans ever since but they were really, a collective decision. Then again, the EU central bank has mostly (except when it...

I stand corrected on British libel laws. Which of his policies is Marxist? I didn't call him a Marxist based on his economic policies (which I mostly support). More based on the kind of people he surrounds himself with. Ah yes, and based on his past comments about how a reunification of Korea might ...

More to the point, how does "we should be willing to engage in constructive talks with the IRA and other terrorist organisations" make hhim a terrorist sympathiser? It's one thing to be in favor of talking to people; it's another thing to praise them at every opportunity. Besides, while I don't sup...

Aili Meilani wrote:

Raphael wrote:He is a Marxist extremist

ITT: John Keynes was a marxist.

How so?

Ok, I'll byte... Accused of being largely absent in the Brexit campaign, he was everywhere here, his profile only expanded by the hysterical press coverage (the papers accused him of being a 'marxist extremist' and a 'terrorist sympathiser'). What's "hysterical" about telling the truth? He is a Marx...

zompist wrote:That was a great write-up, by the way. It's not your fault that Germany's politics is so much less dramatic and absurd than the UK's.

Thank you!

mèþru wrote:American parties make a "platform" for each election instead of a manifesto.

Although it sort of makes logical sense, I still find it a bit weird that an individual part of a platform is called a "plank".

Ah, thanks!

One question: Are there any rules, norms, conventions or traditions for when British parties hold their party conferences? Apparently it's usually not during campaign seasons, as with US party conventions.

The Privy Council doesn't really do anything, but it still holds meetings every week - there has to be the monarch there (or a representative royal), and a quorum of at least three members, oor of course only at least two members when only discussing matters relating to the Opticians Act of 1989. P...

Thanks, Raphael! How popular is Merkel, really? It feels a bit strange that she could conceivably stay in power for 16 years straight. Though IIRC Kohl stayed just as long. That's a kind of difficult question, since polls on her are a bit contradictory, and of course, what I hear myself might not b...

The German federal election is in less than four months, on September the 24th, so inspired by Sal's excellent explanation of the UK election, I thought I might post an explainer. The Basic Rules Germany has a parliamentary system, which means that the Chancellor, who is the head of the federal exe...

The LibDems and Labour also attract the young and educated. LibDem college students seem to be a stereotype similar to the disenchanted leftist college students who vote Green or Libertarian, except that LibDems actually (barely) have power in Parliament while the Greens and Libertarians have no po...

Thank you very much, Salmoneus, I didn't think anyone would respond in so much detail! Hmm, but there is also the effect that music that you're less into tends to sound more the same and you don't hear the differences between genres as much as music moves away from your tastes. Fair point. There's a...